The magic of speech

Not yet, since you ask. And I doubt if I ever will. My aversion to multiplex cinemas, with their cheerless foyers and their hordes of texting, tweeting cola-hydrated popcorn-gobblers, has deterred me from seeing new movies lately. The King’s Speech eluded me until it arrived, in its original form as a play, in the West End. You know the plot: stammering monarch makes boob-free speech. What’s striking is that the writer David Seidler has managed to hang his entire drama, and by implication the destiny of Britain, on such a footling little crisis. His script is a tad short on analysis. We learn the facts of Bertie’s troubled childhood — the bullying, the leg braces and the suppression of his left-handedness — and we’re expected to join the dots and conclude that these woes triggered his stammer. How, exactly, we’re never told.

The minor historical figures are as sketchy as Enid Blyton characters rewritten by Jeffrey Archer. Ian McNeice’s Churchill waddles about charmingly like a sort of Teletubby blessed with Ciceronian eloquence. Edward VIII (Daniel Betts) is a feckless rotter in search of a tyrant to adore: Hitler, Wallis, it’s all the same to him. Michael Feast, as the Archbishop of Canterbury, has added too many feathers and bells to his portrayal of the snobbish, scheming cleric. One of the perils of a lengthy tour is that the actors, without the director’s restraining hand, can amplify their performances and encroach on territory that belongs to others.

No such excesses from Joss Ackland as George V. In earlier times Ackland’s velvety bass voice was one of the wonders of the trade. Everyone who heard it was captivated instantly. His vocal power has diminished a bit nowadays but he’s still pretty good as the aging king who, if not quite on his deathbed, is thinking of tucking himself in soon.